Christmas Miracles
by perfectlyrose
Summary: The Doctor visits a Christmas market and gets a surprise in the form of the one person he thought it was impossible to see again. Then again, Rose Tyler never accepted anything as impossible. Reunion fic.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is indeed a reunion story that does assume that the bits of s4 with Rose and the creation of Tentoo did not occur. (Which...I love Tentoo, but needs must for the story) Pardon me for posting a Christmas story when it's almost May. Also for the incredibly cheesy title. It was a Christmas present for a friend on tumblr.

All mistakes are mine as I'm the only one who proofread it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Doctor Who. I am just playing with the characters because they play with my emotions.

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The Doctor wandered around the Christmas market on Tryprik, trying to let the bright cheer of the other shoppers infect him. He'd dropped Clara off at home for a bit and had been looking for a spot of trouble to keep him occupied but the TARDIS had landed him here, a perfectly peaceful planet that celebrated Christmas with much verve. When he'd realized where he was, he'd tried to get back inside the ship to go somewhere else but she locked him out and refused to give into his pleas. So the Doctor had straightened his bow tie and marched off to the markets. He really tried to avoid Christmas things if he could, too many memories that were painful now. Amy and Rory always setting him a place, meeting Donna for the first time, fighting ghosts in Cardiff, eating Christmas dinner on the Estate and feeling like a part of a family for the first time in centuries. Everything hurt so he ran from it like he always did, avoiding the Christmas season when possible.

Wondering how long he'd have to stay here before the TARDIS would let him back in, the Doctor half-heartedly looked at the stalls for a present for Clara. Eventually he'd catch up to Christmas on her timeline and he had a feeling he would be in trouble if he didn't have a present when that day came. Everything was reminding him of his former companions instead of his current one though. He even kept thinking he saw a flash of blonde hair at the corner of his eye which he knew was impossible. Blonde hair was practically unheard of on this planet and they didn't have frequent visitors yet in this century. This is what Christmas does to him, he thought as he picked up a snowglobe and sonicked it to make sure it wasn't malicious in some way, always making him live in the past. The shopkeeper glared at him so he moved on. There was a café about two streets over and he headed towards that, intending to get a drink and sit for a bit before going to check on if the TARDIS would let him back in. He turned a corner towards the café and suddenly found himself on his back in the snow with a person sprawled across his chest. Catching his breath, he looked down to apologize for not watching where he was going and promptly lost his breath again. There was a blonde smiling at him cheekily. A very familiar blonde. One he hadn't seen in centuries and had never hoped to see again.

"Rose," he breathed.

"Hello Doctor." She beamed at him and then scrambled off of him. For half a second he wanted to protest her getting up but he let her pull him to his feet and kept a hold of her hands. "Thought I'd seen you wanderin' about and was running this way to catch up with you. Didn't mean to _actually_ run into you though. Very us though."

The thought crossed the Doctor's mind that his tenth self had definitely rubbed off on her if the amount she rambled was any indication. He tightened his grip on her hands, not taking his eyes off her for a second. "Rose, how are you here?"

Her grin dimmed for a moment, "Oh yeah, forgot you would have questions. Turns out crossing universes isn't as impossible as you seem to believe if you devote enough time to it and I had plenty of time to spare." A dark look passed over her face before she chased it away with a smile. "Plus I missed you rather a lot. Been looking for you in this universe for a while."

The Doctor's mouth opened and closed a few times. He had so many questions and had no idea where to start. Rose's laugh tumbled out and he couldn't help but smile at her mirth.

"I've made you speechless. I don't know if you talk as much as the last you but I'm still considering it a major accomplishment!" She extracted one of her hands from his grip and reached up to touch his bowtie. "I like this by the way."

He preened. "I keep telling everyone that bowties are cool but no one seems to agree! Should've known you would like it." He winked outrageously at her and she laughed again. "But Rose, how long is a while and how exactly are you here?"

She sighed. "If I promise to answer all of your questions later, can we just have a quick drink now?"

The Doctor agreed and hand in hand they headed down to the café where they proceeded to talk and flirt like they'd never been apart. The Doctor still wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming. Afterwards, he led her towards the TARDIS so they could have their postponed talk.

Once the ship was in sight, Rose let out a squeal of delight and ran towards it. She inserted the key that still hung on a chain around her neck into the lock and ran inside. Immediately she started running her hands along the console, whispering greetings and compliments to the old girl who had completely redesigned herself since the last time her wolf had been inside. When the Doctor made it inside he could feel the TARDIS preening from Rose's compliments and the ship felt happier than she had in a long long time.

Rose sat down, leaning against the console and looked up at him. "Guess it's time to face the music now."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This is indeed a reunion story that does assume that the bits of s4 with Rose and the creation of Tentoo did not occur. (Which...I love Tentoo, but needs must for the story) Pardon me for posting a Christmas story when it's almost May. Also for the incredibly cheesy title. It was a Christmas present for a friend on tumblr.

Thanks so much for the absolutely lovely response to the first half of this!

All mistakes are mine as I'm the only one who proofread it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Doctor Who. I am just playing with the characters because they play with my emotions.

* * *

The Doctor took a seat across from her, legs sprawled out in front of him as he leaned back on locked elbows. They stared at each other for a few moments, both expecting the other to begin. The Doctor broke first, asking the question foremost on his mind. "How Rose? How are you here? I tried everything I could think of and the closest I came was that damn beach."

Rose sighed and then launched into an explanation of a dimensional hopper, based on the early design used when the breach was open. She had refined it to where a jump would only create a pinprick in the dimensional walls instead of a gaping hole. The universe was used to small pinpricks appearing now and then so it automatically healed them. Rose had observed a large number of these incidental pinpricks appear and disappear before working on her design. Finally, after years of research and test after test to make sure she wouldn't damage the walls between universes, Rose began dimension hopping. She could only do a jump once a month so when she landed somewhere, she had to figure out how to live for a month before moving on.

"It took a lot of jumps for me to find this universe." Rose said quietly after finishing her explanation. "Lots of universes out there but even when they were real similar I could tell they weren't quite right." She looked down at her hands which were twisted together and holding tightly to each other as she fought to remain calm. "Some of them were so wrong that it took all I had to stay the month that the universe needed to heal. Saw universes where you were dead. Watched you die once. Ones where the Earth was just a smoking ruin with feral humans eating anything they could find, including each other. There was war and famine and sickness and death." Rose was shaking and when she wrenched her eyes up to meet the Doctor's he could see tears shining in her eyes that she wasn't letting fall.

He couldn't stay across the room. In a flash he was leaning against the console next to her and pulled her into a sideways hug. With her face buried in his chest, a steady double heartbeat underneath her ear, Rose found herself able to continue. "I tried to help where I could but so often things were beyond help and I just had to survive. Did some things I'm not proud of but I had to survive, had to keep going." She trailed off again and the Doctor just held her tighter. He understood doing horrible things to survive, to make it through to the next day. He understood what it was like to look at a world in turmoil and despair and know there was nothing you could do to help. It weighed heavy on a soul and more than anything he wished he could add Rose's burden to his so that she could be free again.

She sniffled once and then pulled back from their hug. Linking their fingers together, she raised their entwined hands to her mouth and gave the back of his hand a quick kiss before resuming her story once more. "It wasn't all bad. There were good days, good months, where the people were kind and friendly and the world at peace. Sometimes I was able to help them if there was trouble. There were days where everyone lived." She flashed a smile at him that reminded him strongly of the one his ninth face wore on that rare day that everyone lived and he had to smile back at her. "Once I found this universe though, I cannibalized my dimension hopper to make a rudimentary vortex manipulator. Much more accurate than Jack's. More of a comfortable ride too, although that could have something to do with my connection to the vortex rather than technological genius." That last part was delivered in a half murmur, mostly to herself.

"So you've just been…" the Doctor flapped his free hand around as he tried to verbalize his question, "hopping around this universe?"

"Hopping for my life," Rose threw him a wink and laughed, her tongue peeking out of her teeth. "But I've been wandering, yes, but I've really been looking for you."

"Found me." He said, bumping her shoulder. She giggled and leaned her head sideways onto him. One more thing was bothering him though, "Rose, this is all brilliant and I can't even tell you how happy I am that you're here but how long has it been for you? It sounds like you've been searching for a long time and building the hopper had to take a while but you barely look older than when I saw you on that beach."

She was quiet for a long moment before she pulled back and looked him in the eye again. "S'been somewhere around three centuries Doctor." Her eyes skittered away from his shocked ones and she plowed on ahead, ignoring the swift intake of breath from the Doctor. "Spent about 150 years in the original alternate. Most of that time was spent holed up in my own private lab after the first 20 though. Couldn't very well explain why I wasn't aging to everyone so I just started working on getting back here and defending the planet from behind the scenes. Once I got the hopper working, I spent eleven years and two months jumping parallels. I've been in this universe for around 140 years I think. Hard to keep track sometimes." She finally met the Doctor's eyes again, her hand coming up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.

Her nervous habits had remained with her for 300 years and the Doctor almost smiled through his shock when he saw it. She had been away for three centuries. Had been _alive _for three centuries. His brain, impressive as it was, had a difficult time wrapping itself around the concept. She'd mentioned a connection with the vortex earlier and that connection, left over from becoming Bad Wolf had to be what had prevented her aging. None of that is what came out of his mouth though. "You've been back for almost a century and a half and you're just now finding me?"

Rose managed a shaky smile, still unsure of his reaction to her news. "You're a hard man to find Doctor. Especially when you don't know someone's looking for you." She bit her bottom lip, debating on whether to share one of the things she did while trying to find him. "Went to go visit Sarah Jane when I got back. Gave her a bit of a shock since she thought I was dead. She'd seen my name on the list of the dead after Canary Wharf. Apparently she went to my funeral and then ten years later to the day, I pop up on her doorstep. Thought she was seeing a ghost, she did. Gave me a place to sleep for a few days though while we caught up. She hadn't heard a peep from you but I went back to visit her often. Lent a hand when she needed it in one of her investigations. She always hoped you would show up again."

Tears shimmered in the Doctor's eyes, "Is she…"

"No, but it's going to happen soon, Doctor. You should really go see her."

"We can go see her together," he offered, hearts beating faster as he realized that Rose probably had her own life now. She may not want to travel with him again and he wanted her to more than anything. Scrambling to add onto his offer, words tumbled out of his mouth at uncharacteristic speed, "We can go lots of places, Rose. If you want. If you want to travel with me again?"

Her grin was like sunshine pouring down from between rain clouds, dazzling in the dimness. "Of course I want to. Why do you think I was looking for you, daft alien?" She could see the beginnings of a pout on his face as he turned over her words in his head. She let him stew for a moment before cupping his cheek in her hand. "There may have been another reason I was looking for you," she whispered, lips hovering over his.

"And what was that, Tyler?"

"Might have needed to tell you again that I love you."

He closed the distance between their mouths and swallowed the last word of her sentence as he grinned against her lips. Christmas might still bring up painful memories but after today he would never doubt the existence of Christmas miracles, not when he was currently holding one in his arms and snogging the breath out of her.


End file.
